Mobile radio networks are wide-spread today and provide a mobile radio user with a large variety of communication options, including voice communications, data communications, short message service communications, voice paging communications, etc. As mobile radios become increasingly prolific in society, the strain on mobile radio communication network to accommodate the volume of mobile radio communications increases. For this reason, efficiencies are always desired in the mobile radio communications environment to simplify and improve call connection procedures and call connection protocols between telephone networks and mobile radios accessing them.
Typically, when a call request is made from a core telephone network to a mobile radio, the core network sends a page request through a radio access network to the mobile station. This page request is sent via a common paging channel monitored by all of the mobile stations assigned to the radio access network. The page request includes a unique identifier associated exclusively with the mobile radio to which the call is destined. The mobile radio (which, as stated previously, is monitoring the page channel) receives the page request and identifies the unique mobile radio identifier associated with the page request as its own. The mobile station then initiates a connection between itself and the caller. The call connection is performed by the radio access network by assigning a channel for use between the mobile station and the core network through which the mobile station and the call originator can communicate.
One of ordinary skill in the art will understand that radio access networks consist of a variety of basic building blocks such as base stations, base station controllers, mobile service switching centers, etc., which permit the mobile stations to communicate with a number of core networks as public telephone switched networks, etc. In this regard, throughout this specification, the phrase "generic radio access network" will refer to the building blocks requested to perform the call connection procedures between a mobile terminal and a core network.
As the volume of traffic in the mobile radio environment increases, it becomes increasingly likely that mobile stations receive simultaneous requests for call connections (or receive a request for a call connection while engaged in an active call). In such situations, the mobile station usually acknowledges to the second requester that it is busy with another call on another channel and therefore cannot accept the second call. It is possible, however, with current technology, for the mobile stations to accept two calls simultaneously, provided the generic radio access network can employ an efficient procedure to connect them. Thus, for example, a mobile station can engage in an active voice telephone call with one core network and still receive on another channel a short message service message from another core network, which can be displayed to the user when the voice telephone call is completed. Unfortunately, however, the present systems usually require the mobile station to employ multiple channels to receive multiple simultaneous messages.